Sustainable Gift Wrapping for a Natural Christmas
Christmas doesn’t need to be an endless buying madness. With a few simple choices you can create a natural Christmas with less waste. Choose thoughful, natural gifts and package them intentionally using what you already have. Repurpose items and decorate your gifts with natural materials to create minimalist Nordic beauty.
Natural Christmas Inspiration
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Starting from the beginning of November, I will be sending small notes to encourage you to begin natural gifting and small nature crafting ideas for Christmas time, and ways to focus on winter wellbeing.
But now back to the wrapping!
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you click on a product or a service and decide to purchase it, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. For more information, you can read my full disclaimer.
Why Choose Sustainable Wrapping?
You’re probably already conscious of the environmental impact of single-use wraps when you started reading this post so I won’t bore you with the details.
Choosing a sustainable way to package your Christmas (or birthday) presents begins with thinking about what you’re giving and how you want it to feel to the receiver.
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So before wrapping ask these few questions:
- Do I even need wrapping? Could my gift be more beautiful just as it is?
- Can I reuse or repurpose? Do I have at home something that can be used as a wrap or gift box?
Naked Gifts — When Less is More
Sometimes the gift is perfect without any full wrapping. Think of the beautiful baskets that start to appear in shops near Christmas — you can create your own with homemade foods or natural beauty products.
So simple.
We Nordics love to gift homemade glögg, a spiced Christmas drink, as a gift.
The best package for it is a glass bottle and a simple jute yarn with star anise or a cinnamon stick as a decoration.
Let the gift shine as it is.
Other perfect options for this kind of ‘naked wrapping’ are gifts in glass jars that are perfect for homemade spreads.
And if you love baking bread, you can gift it in a bread tin and print a recipe next to it.
It becomes both a present and an invitation to bake together.
For example, if you find a recipe you love in the recipe index of this blog you can simply print it using the green “print” button on the recipe card underneath the title and introduction of the recipe!
This is how I packed a bread loaf last Christmas for my parents:
Simple, flavourful, sweet rye bread in the bread tin, red silk ribbon for Christmas colours, and a touch of nature with pine cones and spruce branch.
Homemade Gifts Perfect for Naked Wrapping
- Danish cranberry glogg in a glass bottle with a flip cork and decorated with a ribbon and a cinnamon stick.
- Hot Chocolate Mix in a tiny bottle with a gift tag.
- Almond Butter in a sealable glass jar with a ribbon and sachet of roasted almonds.
- Cocoa Lip Balm in a repurposed tiny jam jar with an oversized ribbon.
Thrifted and Repurposed Wrapping Materials
Anything and everything can be reused and repurposed. Take a moment to see things you have at home through different eyes. Wrap with what you already have in your pantry, cupboards, or even recycling bin.
Magazines and Catalogues
If you have a subscription to any magazine or catalogue, those are perfect things to start with. The clothing catalogues of Swedish Gudrun Sjöden, for example, are like art pieces with the full-page images that are just asking to be repurposed.
Look for the magazines’ most beautiful images, ask for any when visiting friends or family, or thrift them affordably in second-hand shops.
Foreign Language Newspapers
Make a habit of checking at cafés for forgotten newspapers in Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic to repurpose them later on as gift wraps. Those look prettier in our eyes often than the ones written with letters that you read fluently.
Or check your paper recycling bin for foreign newspapers — they make surprisingly elegant wrapping paper!
Kraft and Product Papers
Depending on the size of the package, something mundane and so simple is to repurpose a sugar or flour bag upside down as a reusable wrapping paper. Just carefully open the bag from the seams or cut with scissors as close to the seam as possible.
Leave the Kraft paper as it is, or paint or stamp with cute rubber letter stamps, for example, to decorate it before making your package.
How to Spot Reusable Paper Options
See the random opportunities wherever you move. I might ask in the morning at a grocery store to have the brown kraft paper that wraps ten sugar bags together when they are shelving the products.
Trash for them gift for us.
The gorgeous brown colored kraft paper can be reused several times. It is simple to gift things like homemade candies or roasted almonds when you shape them like a cone.
Reuse Gift Wrapping from Opened Presents
When you receive gifts, if you open them nicely, you can save and repurpose them next time.
I used to collect Christmas wrappings as a child, for I loved to see all the different images and colors. Then I rewrapped gifts with those next year. We still do this with my sister in some capacity. Our families already know not to write names directly on the wrapping, so we can reuse them next year.
At some point, people will recognise your natural lifestyle and adapt to it around you.
Wrap Gifts with Fabric
There is this concept of furoshiki that emphasizes reusing and eco-friendly gift-giving. In furoshiki, the main point is not just wrapping the gift but making the wrapping become a part of the gift itself.
When wrapping your gift with a scarf or even a tea towel, you encourage the receiver also to find alternative uses for their gift wrappings. You can find plenty of folding tutorials on YouTube to make stunning gift packages using only the fabric in your gift, no ribbons or scotch tape needed!
Tiny children love to recieve gifts wrapped in fabric. When I wrapped my daughters gift with a head scarf she wanted me to rewrap it over and over again to open the gift multiple times.
Just maybe remember to iron the fabric before wrapping to have a more polished look!
Repurposed Gift Boxes and Jars
Using boxes and jars that are made with natural materials such as glass, wood, and tin are durable and perfect to repurpose or buy second-hand. With a few touches, you can make a beautiful personalised gift.
Thrifted Tins and Jars
Use old cookie tins, coffee and tea tins, cough tablet tins, or glass jars to pack your homemade natural gifts.
Make a habit of saving the beautiful reusable tin and glass boxes for your gift box shelf that you can rotate so that you always have a few options in hand. Same way, keep an eye on thrift stores when visiting, if there is something useful.
Wooden Boxes and Wine Crates
For any breakable gifts, the wooden wineboxes are the perfect choice to reuse as a gift box. Use single bottle crates that are smaller for one glass gifts, homemade goodies, biscuits, breads – you name it!
If you have not used wine boxes or crates before, I have a perfect post for you on where to find wooden wine boxes for free or at low cost and especially for your needs. And if you prefer other shades for your box, you can simply make your homemade stain using tea and iron.
Homemade Gift Baskets
Any kind of wicker basket or wooden box will add the old-time charm to your gift.
I found this old bread box from a thrift store, and it was perfect for my Natural Christmas gift box.
| RELATED: Natural Gift Ideas
Add Volume and Interest with Ribbons and Yarns
The ribbons and yarns have two main reasons to be part of wrapping. One is to tie the gift so that the wrapping stays closed — no tape needed.
The latter is to decorate and create volume in the gift that otherwise is quite flat on the surface. Flat gifts like books can look a little plain on their own, but ribbons and natural decorations bring warmth and character.
Creative Ways to Reuse Ribbons
- Add jute yarn for a natural look. I save the pieces of jute yarn that I use for drying the herbs for the herbal teas and use them again and again.
- Repurpose silk ribbons from clothing price tags and the hanger loops (those little ribbon loops sewn inside the neckline of blouses to keep them from slipping off hangers). They make beautiful ties for small gifts and herbal sachets!
- Reuse the yarns and ribbons from the received presents from past Christmases and birthdays.
Recycled and Remade Gift Tags
When gathered with the family for the Christmas celebration you want of course name your gift so that the variety of gifts will not get mix but find the right person. This is the moment when DIY gift tags become handy.
As I told you before, that my family know already not to write names in straight to the wrappings for the sake of repurposing them later. So name tag is quite essential from that point of view too!
Ideas on what to use as name tags
- Cut heart-shaped name tags from the magazines or catalogue papers.
- Paint the name in beautifully shaped stones.
- Use plain wine corks and mark the name with a Sharpie.
- Repurpose last year’s Christmas cards, just glue a blank paper on the other side and cut the card to the shape of your preference.
Small, handmade details like these make even simple gifts feel special.
Foraged and Natural Decorations
Nature is the ultimate source for anything you need, and the decorations are no exception. Gather some pine cones, acorns, leaves, bark, or twigs to add final, thoughtful touches to your gift.
I used the dry seed cones of Iris flowers, a pine cone, and reused (and ironed) silk ribbon to wrap together these simple beeswax candles that I rolled using beeswax sheets with honeycomb pattern.
Ideally, you can also use some pantry items, such as spices like cinnamon, star anise, or a branch of rosemary.
You can try to match the decoration with the gift you are packing and add the ingredient you have used in the gift itself.
Like I showed earlier, adding a simple star anise or cinnamon stick decoration to a glogg bottle makes it more lovely. The same spice plays the important role of seasoning the glogg as well.
So when baking orange gingerbread cookies, the slice of dried orange is a more than appropriate natural decoration to hang in the glass jar!
Cut and dry some orange slices in a yarn or in the oven. Try other citrus like blood orange, grapefruit fruit or lime to get some variation in colour and size.
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Which Idea Will You Try This Year?
As we can see, there are multiple ways to wrap gifts without ever stepping into a shop or using disposable wrappings year after year to accumulate the waste. Start by looking at your home and belongings with new eyes. Focus on items that might soon go to recycling, like magazines or product packaging paper
With some effort, you can even turn a toilet paper carton roll into a repurposed gift box. When you begin with small steps towards a natural lifestyle way of thinking you will start noticing the beauty around you and how you can repurpose them into anything you can imagine.
So, which idea will you be trying out this Christmas? Take a photo of your sustainably wrapped gift and tag me on Instagram with @blueteatile or leave a comment below. I would love to see your creations!
